Linux Mint Surprise
- Thread starter redbone3
- Start date
Yeah I haven't touched windows in many years, and despise Fruitbooks, fruitphones or fruitpads. I'm partial to Ubuntu as for the most part everything works out of the gate. However the latest version upgrade sees my Epson Stylus printer but isn't printing, so I'm forced to print from my older Lenovo Ideapad. You should check out either howtogeek or one ofvthe other Linux blogs. One had a great article about settings to make an ssd drive work better with Linux.
I've been trying doing that with Windows for years...?
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2023
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- 179
This really resonates with me as I've just had a very similar story.
I've been trying to figure out what to do about my daily driver laptop given it's not eligible for the Windows 11 update and Windows 10 is losing support in October.
From 1999-2016 I was a full-time Linux user, but a change in my work status meant that I had to switch to Windows.
So, I bought a Lenovo X1 Carbon 4th gen with Windows in 2016, and set the old Lenovo X61 (with Ubuntu LTS 16.04) aside and didn't even power it up in the intervening nine years.
Not being a huge fan of Windows, while using the X1 I kept a very strict strategy of not installing any software, but rather only using web-based apps in Edge. Basically I used it in an analogous way to a Chromebook-- I considered it to be an "Edgebook."
In the last 9 years I haven't kept up on Linux news, so while searching for possible Windows 11-running new machines to replace the X1 (and not finding any options I was thrilled about), I was surprised to learn that MS now makes Edge for Linux. Not only that, but I've seen several reviews saying that Edge is one of the better-performing browsers for Linux, having above average performance and lower than average resource needs. Nice!
That caused me to dig out the old X61 and see if I could get Edge running on it. All kinds of dependency issues trying to install Edge on Ubuntu 16.04, so I took a shot at upgrading.
To my shock, I was able to upgrade from 16.04 to 18.04, then to 20.04, then 22.04, and finally 24.04 with nary a hitch.
Installed Edge, logged into my MS account, and, unbelievable, absolutely everything I had previously set up in Edge on Windows (bookmarks, extensions, saved passwords, etc.) were all there and functional!
Bottom line was that I was able to completely replicate the "Edgebook" experience I have been using the last 9 years with an X1 Carbon running Windows on a 2007 Lenovo X61 running full Ubuntu (including full gnome desktop) with 4gb RAM!
It's been my daily driver now for the last week, and it works great. Just blown away by the fact that this old machine is now fully modern and functional, and with the carryover of all my Copilot history of conversations, it even a fully AI- capable machine.
Since I retired at the end of 2023, I don't need Windows anymore, so with this success, it looks like I'm back to Linux again myself!
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
I have a few windows 10 images that have been used on quite literally a thousand different PCs/combos. They boot right up every time. Flush old drivers, reinstall new drivers, and off you go.
Windows hasn't "locked" to the CPU since Windows 8 came out.
Windows can do it but sometimes ends up being buggy. It's just another day at the office for Linux.
if you remove and reinstall drivers, there's rarely any bugs (no more than whatever Windows usually has).
I've probably installed the same image of windows on at least 300 different CPU/GPU configs, and that base image was taken from an install base of hundreds before it.
Zero issues.
now try installing that Mint image (or booting that drive) on a desktop with Intel discrete graphics.
It's completely possible to do that with little to no issues. I do that often with old company drives before I toss it if I'm bored, just to see what user had the drive before.
For users, if something physically broke on their laptop but their drive is good, I'll just switch the drive over no problem. The last one I did was a few months ago. The screen randomly broke so I just took out the drive and swapped it into another same model laptop.
Doesnt matter if it's a laptop, desktop, dell, HP, Lenovo, etc As long as there isn't any proprietary drivers, everything will work (looking at you HP Pro/elitebook g11 Touchpads.....)
Win 11 is literally plug-n-play.
Linux is super nice, if it wasn't for work I wouldn't have a windows machine, even though I work in I.T. (Networking). It seems to be a shot in the dark whether or not windows will work if you ever do that, typically (in my experience) even if it does you're gonna be looking at needing to activate windows again (purchase a license key if you follow the TOS , as best as I understand them).
without comment on how it can be acquired; Windows 10 Enterprise IoT LTSC has support until 2027
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- Apr 4, 2023
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- 179
I have seen info about that, as well as some strategies to take advantage of that fact. But I decided it wasn't worth the effort to pursue it (given my hit-or-miss level of technical skill with computers).
BTW, I still maintain my suspicion that, at the last minute, MS is going to allow an upgrade path for machines that are not fully compliant as there seems to be plenty of anecdotal evidence (much of it posted on this forum) that non-compliant machines can work fine when the restrictions are bypassed and Windows 11 is installed.
Since, as described above, I have only used my X1 Carbon as an "Edgebook" and have used no other installed software, I would be fine with something like MS allowing Windows 11 upgrades on TPM 1.x machines but substituting the TPM security with S-Mode restriction (or something like that).
We'll see if anything like that happens, but in the meantime I'm pretty happy with my old X61 running Ubuntu and using Edge for all apps.
I switched over to Linux Mint 22 back in December. It does everything I need and I love the simplicity.
